Pubdate: Tue, 19 Dec 2006
Source: Portland Press Herald (ME)
Copyright: 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/744
Author: Elbert Aull, Staff Writer

CHITWOOD'S COLORFUL LANGUAGE ENDS UP ON HOT-SELLING
T-SHIRT

Michael Chitwood's penchant for tough talk made him an  often-quoted 
public figure in Maine. Now the former  Portland police chief is 
going national.

Chitwood's creative slang recently landed his suburban  Philadelphia 
police department on the national news  after a couple of officers in 
Upper Darby, Pa., put one  of their favorite Chitwood-isms on the 
back of a  T-shirt.

The officers began selling T-shirts emblazoned with the  phrase "Not 
in My Town 'Scumbag' " -- a term Chitwood  has used frequently to 
describe drug dealers -- to  raise money for a scholarship fund.

The T-shirt effort got the attention of both the  Philadelphia media 
and the national cable news earlier  this month.

So much attention, Chitwood said, that the department  has launched 
an Internet site to handle the shirt  sales, which until recently 
were tying up his  department's phone lines.

"We were getting e-mails from across the country" after  the site 
went up, said Chitwood, police superintendent  in Upper Darby.

The T-shirts are for sale at www.scumbagteeshirts.com  for $10 each. 
Chitwood estimated his department has  sold around 700 of the shirts 
and raised about $3,000  for the Dennis McNamara Scholarship Foundation.

McNamara was an Upper Darby police officer who was shot  and killed 
on duty in early 2002. His family awards a  scholarship to a local 
high school student interested  in poetry or music -- two of 
McNamara's hobbies -- each  year, Chitwood said.

Portland Deputy Chief Joseph Loughlin said officers  here weren't 
surprised to see a Fox News report  featuring the chief known as 
"Media Mike" during his  time in Maine. "He always threw around a lot 
of  colorful words to get people's attention -- and it  works," Loughlin said.

Chitwood said the phrase on the T-shirt was intended to  send a 
message to drug dealers in Upper Darby, a  community of about 83,000 
with a good deal of violent  crime. Police conducted 68 drug raids 
and made 132  arrests during the first 11 months of this year, he  said.

The shirt also serves as a response to a fashion trend  that roiled 
police and prosecutors in several  mid-Atlantic states last year.

"This is our response to 'Stop Snitchin,'" Chitwood  said, explaining 
that T-shirts bearing the slogan were  popular at the local high 
school last year. (Snitch is  a slang term for a person who gives 
officials  incriminating information about a criminal.)

Authorities criticized manufacturers of the snitch  T-shirts for 
possibly encouraging witness intimidation.

Chitwood, a Philadelphia native, left Portland for  Upper Darby in 
2005. He served as Portland's police  chief for 17 years and briefly 
considered a run for  governor.
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